


Committed and Monogamous

by ami_ven



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsheplets, Engagement, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2588123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney don’t talk about marriage— until they do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Committed and Monogamous

**Author's Note:**

> written for LJ community "mcsheplets" prompt #054 "mixed signals"

Seven years after the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the last US state signed marriage equality into law. The military had held back from issuing many official statements, stuck in the middle as marriages were fully legal in some places and not recognized in others. And when the official word did come in, it was so bureaucratic that John almost missed it— a series of memos for base chaplains to file copies of all marriage certificates with the local civilian registrars, and for all personnel who had been issued those certificates to receive the full benefits of legally-married status.

John blinked at his e-mail, not surprised by the memos, but by the fact that his first thought after reading them had been, _I should ask Rodney to marry me_.

They hadn’t even talked about marriage. Their relationship was committed and monogamous— not that they’d ever use either of those words, of course, not even in private— but John didn’t think it would be a particularly happy topic, for either of them. John had thought he’d never want to even date seriously after his divorce, but he and Rodney had been together for more than a decade, and he knew that if they had a hundred more years together, it still wouldn’t be enough.

But Rodney usually made his opinions on anything and everything painfully clear, so when Rodney didn’t have anything to say on the subject of marriage for a few weeks, then a few months, John stopped thinking about it.

There were no weddings held in Atlantis, but a few same-sex couples transferred in, integrating seamlessly into the city. So it wasn’t until a year later, when John was breaking the news, as gently as he could, to a Marine whose scientist husband had been killed in an off-world accident, that John thought about it again.

Or rather, he thought about the paperwork— the official reading of Dr. Napier’s will, bereavement leave for Lieutenant Davidson and passage on the _Daedalus_ to accompany his husband’s body back to Earth, separating the classified things from Napier’s personal effects so that the rest could be shipped back to his family…

John found Rodney in his lab, assessing the projects that Napier had been working on so they could be reassigned to other people. “Hey,” he said, softly.

Rodney looked up. “Oh. Hey.”

John stopped behind his chair, then leaned forward to wrap his arms around Rodney’s waist, nose pressed into the shoulder of his t-shirt. “Marry me.”

“What?” Rodney twisted, trying to look at him, but John held on tight.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask. Or, I should ask, but I should do it better. Get down on one knee, give you a ring, but I know that if I wait another second, I’ll convince myself that you’d never want to get married and I’ll never—”

Rodney twisted harder, and caught John’s face in both hands, then kissed him firmly. “ _Yes_ ,” he said. “Yes, you idiot, _yes_ , I’ll marry you.”

“Really?” said John, grinning.

“Idiot,” Rodney repeated, affectionately. “But I thought… well, you know, after your divorce…”

“I thought I wouldn’t,” John admitted. “But it was the first thing I thought, when the official regulation changes started coming through. That I wanted to marry you.”

“Why didn’t you ask me then?” Rodney asked, not accusing, just curious.

“I thought _you_ wouldn’t want to get married,” said John. “We were doing fine, just the way we were, and I didn’t want to, you know, start trouble.”

Rodney snorted a laugh. “You _always_ start trouble, Sheppard. Whether you mean to or not. Like this engagement business…”

“You said ‘yes’, Rodney, you can’t back out now.”

“How stupid do you think I am?” Rodney retorted, but he was smiling. “You really want to marry me, John?”

“Hell, yes,” John agreed. “Ship captains can really marry people, right? The _Daedalus_ is due in tomorrow, and we’ll just ask Caldwell—”

Rodney interrupted him with a kiss, laughing. “As much as I would love to see Caldwell’s face after being asked that, I think maybe we should do a little more planning and invite our families.”

John grinned, and kissed him.

THE END


End file.
